ID this grisly scene from a movie

Cafe Society
1

I saw it on TV years ago. Bad guys have captured a man and tied him to the mast of a ship. They then begin to skin him alive. (Nothing is actually shown – it’s done with rapid cuts and camera angles to imply what’s going on.)

The hero, unable to stand the prisoner’s suffering, shoots him in the head to put him out of his misery.

That’s all I can remember. I didn’t see the rest of the movie and I can’t even remember if it was set in the past or the present day. But it was such a vivid scene that it’s stuck with me.

2

Try posting this here on IMDb. The more descriptive a title you use, the faster you’ll get an answer.

3

IIRC it was episode 2 of The Raging Queen titled “I am nailed to The Hull”.

4

Could it be The Sand Pebbles? There is a somewhat similar scene to what you describe—though not identical, in several important respects.

5

It sounds a lot like the scene from * The Last of the Mohicans*, except the guy was burning, not being skinned on a mast…?

6

Was it a pirate flick? Because I want to say I saw a pirate movie once in which this happened.

7

“No, punish me!”

8

You could be thinking of The Sand Pebbles (1966), where Steve McQueen’s character has to watch from on board a ship as a friend of his is strung up on the shore and treated much as you describe, by a mob of communist Chinese. McQueen grabs a rifle and puts his friend out of his misery much to the annoyance of the captain, who has been ordered not to interfere.

9

My guess is The Light at the Edge of the World, starring Kirk Douglas and Yul Brynner – a not-especially-science-fictiony Jules Verne adventure adaptation. Rather brutal and graphic for a mainstream film of its day (PG rated, but far more visceral than the notorious Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). I remember seeing it at a drive-in as a lad of about 12 with my parents, where we had gone to see the rather more family-friendly Bingo Long. We were all a bit startled by it – the viciousness of the bad guys and the body count among sympathetic characters raised the stakes above most adventure movies of the day.

10

That’s definately the pirate film I was thinking of. I also saw it at a drive-in. My dad wasn’t one to take us to the kiddy movies. If we were going to the movies, we went to the drive-in and saw a double feature with something he wanted to see. I was probably around 11 or 12 when we saw this one and it was gory enough to make an impression on me back in those days.

11

The Light at the Edge of the World sounds very much like it might be it. I’m going to Google to get more information to confirm. Thanks! That scene has stuck in my head for years.